Guilty Verdict in Gay Man’s Killing

A reputed gang member from the Inland Empire was convicted of second-degree murder Friday for the June 2002 stabbing death of a gay man outside a downtown Riverside bar.

Dorian Lee Gutierrez, 21, of Riverside was the last of five reputed gang members found guilty in the killing of Jeffrey Owens, 40, of Moreno Valley.

The men attacked Owens and his friends in the parking lot of the Menagerie nightclub, authorities said.

Gutierrez had faced a charge of hate crime as well, but a judge threw out the allegation in part because Owens had pursued Gutierrez after their initial altercation.

Gutierrez stabbed Owens at least four times, authorities said.

Two others pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and one to accessory to murder in September 2003. A fourth pleaded guilty to attempted murder last fall.

Owens, an AIDS activist, died in the hospital from stab wounds and an accidental overdose of blood thinner.

“I was very pleased with the verdict,” Deputy Dist. Atty. John Davis said Friday in the Riverside courthouse where the case was tried. “I thought the jury listened to a lot of complex information that was thrown at them in a very short amount of time.”

Defense attorney Charles Butler could not be reached for comment.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for more than 15 hours after the 11-day trial, said juror Jacqueline Jenkins of Riverside.

There were some emotionally charged disagreements, she said, but “I thought it was a just outcome.”

Gutierrez’s mother, who watched the trial, said the verdict was too harsh.

“My son is not a brutal person,” said Maria Gutierrez of High Grove. “He’s very happy-go-lucky, laughing all the time, making jokes. They were just drunk,” she said of her son and his friends.

Owens was stabbed after coming to the aid of a friend, Michael Bussee, who was also stabbed that night.

Bussee was in the courthouse Friday.

“I still to this day believe, and will for the rest of my life, that this was a hate crime,” said Bussee, of Riverside. Nonetheless, “I feel that justice was served.”